Saturday, June 23, 2018

The trees reached from one side to the other, creating a beautiful archway dense with foliage. I was transported to another time and place. I had never been to England, only in the books I read. Now I was stepping into those visions I'd only dreamed of.

A friend wrote that she was walking down a path in England. Ah, I was a little envious. It has been about eight years ago that I traveled with a friend to Nottingham, England, to help settle his mother's estate. We moved into the town for two weeks, becoming natives instead of visitors. The perspective was different. No tourist tours for us. I met locals and was shown all the sights. The most memorable were the antiquity of the buildings, the awesome pubs and, most of all, the dingle.

dingle [ding-guh l]noun: a deep, narrow cleft between hills; shady dell.syn: basin, lowland, bottom, dell, glen, swale, vale, coulee, trough, notch, channel, basin, gorgeI grew up with a bottom. Now don't giggle. I grew up with two bottoms. One was a creek bottom. A place where cows grazed. A place where I rode my horse. It was a place of adventure and memories. We fished there and walked the back lane almost every day during the summer. I knew what a bottom was. However, I did not know that the bottom was also a dingle. This does not apply to the other bottom.A fence ran along the shaded path. Though the day was sunny, the archway mottled the light, creating a dramatic effect. We followed the old rock wall to a gate. I began to laugh. At last I had found the faerie glen straight out of Tolkien novels. The sign on the gate said that it was the entrance to the dingle. We walked down the forest path into a small bottom where I am sure a mystical world lived. We clambered over fallen trees and hopped across rocks in the stream. The little girl in me laughed and wanted to dance with the faeries and talk to the forest creatures.When traveling to another culture, you absorb. You do not compare, because there is no comparison. The people are different. The language is different, even though you supposedly speak the same. The history is much older. And differences enhance our lives and help us grow. Yes, I walked down a dingle. I walked in as a country girl from Neff Road and walked out with new understanding. Was it a dream? Sometimes I think so. For a girl who always had a wild imagination, imagination came to life. I walked down a dingle.

Sunday, June 17, 2018

Yes. No. No. No. Yes. No. Well, you get the point. I am deciding what will go to our new home and what will not. There is a great benefit to moving. You actually stop to think about all of this and that which has been following you around during your lifetime. The childhood memories, the things left from your parents and, for some of us, the things remaining from a past marriage all residing in one house. So the Yessing and Nooing is taking place.

My son came over yesterday to peruse the No pile. He shook his head and picked up only two things. My treasures have nothing to do with him. It is a new day and age. Back in older generations things were passed on, because they had use to the next generation. Doilies that once had a place on the shelf are now something that my kids and grandkids don't remember seeing in a home. The silver and antique dishes mean nothing in this new day and age. They are my memories and not theirs. So my No pile increases as I look to this new life with this wonderful man who is doing the same in his house.

We have decided that we want new things that are ours and not part of our past lives with other partners. And, I have to say, this is indeed an adventure. We are looking at our life together in a different way, a more creative way. Our ages have nothing to do with making plans and having fun finding things that represent this new phase of our lives. Having a new house that didn't belong to either of us is a great start. We get to plan together this new home of ours. We get to look forward. Not backwards. Not to the end when we are feeble. We get to look forward with a new vision that is all ours. It is full of life and enthusiasm.

I have emptied the old trunks. Too much has been packed and moved and never used in recent times. The attic will be empty of the same. It is not housecleaning. It is life cleaning. My children will not need to go through years of history trying to decide what to keep and what not to keep. The piles of pictures of people they do not know will be gone. Only the history will remain.

There is a relief in ridding myself of all this baggage. I do not need these things to retain memories. I have the memories in my heart. Yes, I have saved a couple of doilies made by my cousin Betty and those made by my grandmother, and I am keeping one of my old dolls. Not all will be gone, but the pack rat is gone.

Sunday, June 10, 2018

The buckets filled with it sat in the back room. I never really thought much about it as a kid, but it seemed that anything that could hold anything held the stuff. Funny the things that pop up in memory.

The twins were in the backseat. I was telling them about singing in the car when the Loxleys were going for long drives. All of a sudden I burst into verse......three little kitten, they lost their mittens and they began to cry....I couldn't seem to stop....oh, Mommy dear, we sadly fear, our mittens we have lost....where in the world did this come from? Those things that pop up in our minds that we have long forgotten. Once they grab hold, you don't want them to slip away.

June and I are good for one another in bringing up things we had forgotten and things that only siblings can share. We fail to realize as we are growing up the significance of having someone who lived lives with us and who can share all those memories that no one else knows. Yet, her childhood, until I was able to realize life around me, was so different from mine. Mine, after my sisters had gone, was much different than theirs. Little things. Little things that were taken for granted are now cherished, because we share them once more. And, they are little bit of a surprise when we stubble upon them.

I stood in the shower looking at my choices of soap. The shower soap smells really yummy. The handmade, oatmeal bar leave me feeling scrubbed clean. The body scrub takes off a layer of skin, leaving me pink all over. Then it hit me!!! Those tubs of that white stuff in the back room. Mom's homemade lye soap. Hm. Did we bathe with it? Certainly it would take off all your skin. Mom did laundry with it as I remember, scraping pieces off into the wringer washer tub. Did she use it to clean the house? Did she use it to wash dishes? Did she have any hands left after she used it?! Why was there so much soap hardening in the back room?????

Niggle, niggle, niggle. What pops up in your thoughts of the past that you fail to share? Don't you think you should? Making lye soap, using a wringer washer, reciting poems from childhood and sometimes breaking out in "How much is that doggie in the window? The one with the waggily taillllll. Memories more fun to share then to tuck back into the recesses of our minds once more.

I love sharing my memories with you but ask you to share yours with others. I guarantee they will be much richer when you share them, because a wealth of memories of people, places and childhood will flow over you.

Monday, June 4, 2018

"Which hand?" Dad had his hands tucked behind his back. Which hand? Behind his back was something that Dad discovered and wanted to share with his children. The guessing game always brought smiles and giggles. What would he have this time? Was is alive? Was it an arrowhead?

My father loved to make his family smile. Of course, Mom's face lit up every time he walked into a room. He didn't surprise her with gifts. He surprised her with song or by taking her into his arms. He was her surprise and delight, and he knew it.

But for the Loxley girls, he was adventure. He delighted in taking us into the field to see a nest of bunnies or to take us mushroom hunting steering us toward a patch. His adventures often lead us to birds nests or maybe a turtle or a frog. Never was it just taking us to see the new thing. He delighted in teasing us and making it memorable.

There were two surprises that I know thoroughly delighted Dad. It wasn't just the end result. He loved the planning to make the event the best it could be. I sit here remembering these events and smile. My heart is full of love for that man who made it all special. He opened the door of the milk truck. Two small lambs stood on the floor. Some kids want a new dog or a cat. I just wanted a lamb. The sweet little lambs made our hearts soar. And, to this day, I can hear my dad laughing as our responses. Years later a truck pulled into the driveway. It pulled over by the garage. Dad and Uncle Jim opened the door to the trailer, leading the horse out. Yes, my second dream was to own a horse. It was a new mouth to feed and more work for Dad, but again, he could not resist the surprise.

So often when the screen door closed, Dad came in with a new treasure. He loved to tease us until we guessed. An arrowhead, a chrysalis, a fossil, a discovery he made that he knew his children would love to see. A lesson he would love to teach his children.

Farm life is full of adventure and discovery. We had nature lessons everyday. We learned how what it takes to make plants grow. We knew early how to reap the bounty of a garden. We knew the calls of the birds and the names of the stars in the sky. We learned to know the trees by their bark. We knew what birthing involved by watching the calves and lambs born. We knew how to gather eggs and to pluck a chicken. We knew how to play using our imaginations. We absolutely knew what it was to be part of a community. Yes, we were surrounded by the things that other children could not imagine. And, with Dad, he gave us more lessons in living.

Which hand? Which hand held the surprise? It is not that surprise that is precious now. In fact, I cannot remember all of them. I do, however, remember my father's hand as it unfurled. I remember his warm laughter and sparkling eyes. Dad indeed did leave us with a legacy in finding delight in life. But more than that, he left us with a spirit of adventure. He taught us to be surprised at what we might find. He taught us to look deeper into life. Which hand? Perhaps my own.